Day 2: Ships don´t like me

Espanola Island Travel Blog

Yech, last night was so rough! I got pretty sea sick last night and this morning. We both had to take Dramamine but Rachel wasn´t too badly affected. She said the best thing about me taking Dramamine is that I sleep like the dead when I´m on it. Our boat was 4 hours late to its destination today, Española Island.

En route, we saw dolphins swimming beside the boat. That was pretty cool but they didn´t do any jumps or tricks. Is that only at the aquarium?

After arriving at Española Island we used the zodiacs to get to shore. We saw so many animals! We saw sea lions, marine iguanas, blue foot boobies, nazca (masked) boobies, and albatrosses and their (ugly) babies.

We also saw a blow hole.

Marine igunana

Española has basalt cliffs leading into the sea around much of its perimeter. In one spot, the waves have carved out a cave. In the top of the cave is a hole leading up to the surface. When the waves are big enough, they fill up the cave and the water blows out of the hole. With really big waves the spray can reach 75 feet high!

It's really amazing being here. You can get right next to the animals and if you´re not careful walking around you might trip over one!

We returned to the ship for lunch. During lunch we motored to a different beach.

After lunch we went and hung out on the beach. I went snorkeling but I didn´t really see anything. I left Rachel on the beach with her book. When I left she was surrounded by about 5 mocking birds. The mocking birds here are really curious about things. They´ll practically jump in your pack to see what you have in there. And since there´s no real source of fresh water on the island, they´re always thirsty so they´re really interested in your water bottles. There were more sea lions on the beach too.

On the way back to the ship, we saw a sea turtle floating on top of the ocean. That was cool.

Luckily, I was able to fall asleep before the boat left for our next destination.

No tricks. Didn't those dolphins know you were expecting some entertainment? Ha ha. Actually I think they do jump and put on shows outside of aquariums. When we went out to Santa Cruz Islands (California Channel Islands) there were a bunch jumping in and out of the water pacing our boat.